There could be a misunderstanding on "that has never been edited". My best guess is that Sergio Leone did a 270 minute version which had sound and was very roughly put together (edited). It may have had several bits that needed further editing to produce a final cut such as the mismatch of the number plates and Carol's scenes in the nursing home. This may partly explain why we are only getting a further 25 minutes.

I hope you’re right, Once. Were that true I’d feel slightly better about this restoration. But I have my doubts. When Leone says the footage “has never been edited” I’m not sure what else he could mean other than that the footage has never been edited. And Leone’s children didn’t say they found a “270 minute cut” or a “four-and-a-half hour cut.” They said they found 40 minutes of additional footage. When this was all first announced a few years ago, Raffaella said, “we want to restore forty minutes of new scenes that we have found. Mind you, we will not reassemble the film; it will stay what my father did.”

The common perception that Leone actually assembled a 270 minute cut might be a myth. Once upon a time, in 1984 to be exact, Leone planned to edit the 50 minutes into the 229 version at a later date, but he never got around to doing it.

That's what I think too. The 270 min version was never constructed. And all of Leone's claims about that version are only a rough guess how long the longer version would be after the fine-cutting. Which also means there was no music for these scenes. Which also means if re-constructed by someone else, different choices would have been made for the final version.

Like with the Seydor-cut of Pat Garrett. Some of his choices would nobody else have done except himself.

based on what Frayling says, it seems that the 45-50 extra minutes Leone would have preferred to keep in the movie were complete, not unedited. We've quoted that p. 458 of STDWD many times, how Leone said he had to cut 45-50 minutes of "significant material" to get the movie down to 229 minutes. It would seem to me that cutting 45-50 minutes of "significant material" would means "significant material that was ready for release," and NOT "significant unedited raw footage which may only be 15-20 minutes once edited for release." of course, that gives no indication one way or another as to whether those extra scenes were scored; and if necessary, dubbed. But IMO it definitely seems that the picture was in relatively, edited, releasable condition.

On the other hand, on the same page, just before saying that Leone had to very reluctantly cut between 45-50 minuted worth of "significant material," Frayling quotes Leone as saying that "his ideal running time would have been between 4:10 and 4:25"

Now, if his ideal running time would have been between 4:10 and 4:25, then in order to get down to 3:49, he would have had to cut between 21-36 minutes off his ideal running time, and not the 45-50 minutes!! When I brought up this issue a while ago, someone it may have been ONCE, don't remember for sure) suggested that at that point, Leone was just giving very approximate numbers of the running times.

However, I'd prefer to think that Leone (and Frayling) were being accurate about the number of minutes. So perhaps we can answer that question along these same lines of the issue of raw footage vs. edited footage: Maybe we can say those 45-50 mins. of "significant material" was actually not edited footage, but footage that was in the raw stages, and it would have yielded about 21-36 minutes of final, usable footage.

So had he been able to actually use those 45-50 minutes of "significant material," that he ideally would have wanted to use, that amount of raw footage it would have would have yielded 21-36 minutes of final, usable footage, equaling a final cut of 4:10 - 4:25.

Of course, this is a very, very, very unsatisfying answer: when Frayling says that Leone had to cut 45-50 minutes of "significant material," I imagine he meant final, releasable material. So (assuming Frayling is reporting it accurately), I really don't know how Leone could say his ideal running time would have been between 4:10 and 4:25, had he been able to use those 45-50 minutes. Adding the 45-50 minutes to 3:49 should have equaled an ideal running time of 4:34 -- 4:39, and not 4:10 - 4:25. Neither suggested answer -- that their numbers of minutes mentioned were approximate; and that the material was unedited and not final, releasable material -- is very satisfying. (Heck, maybe I can't accept those answers cuz deep deep down, I am sooooo badly hoping that somehow, there is some 5-hour version or sumthin )

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Anyway, We really need someone to get in touch with someone IN THE KNOW and find out what's going on....

« Last Edit: May 06, 2012, 09:56:37 PM by drinkanddestroy »

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There are three types of people in the world, my friend: those who can add, and those who can't.

That's what I think too. The 270 min version was never constructed. And all of Leone's claims about that version are only a rough guess how long the longer version would be after the fine-cutting. Which also means there was no music for these scenes. Which also means if re-constructed by someone else, different choices would have been made for the final version.

Like with the Seydor-cut of Pat Garrett. Some of his choices would nobody else have done except himself.

Good point!

I'm definitely not a fan of this kind of tinkering unless the instructions by the director are very explicit (as in the case of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" for example) and at least some kind of approximation can be made. For me the definitive version of Pat Garrett is Peckinpah's rough cut (i.e. the TCM '88 version with the scene with Garrett's wife added back in).

It's from Oreste De Fornari's 'Sergio Leone: The Great Italian Dream of Legendary America.' Leone discusses each of his films in a chapter called "Leone on Leone." The comments come from an interview De Fornari did with Leone in 1988.

Ah right, thanks. I must have read it myself then at some point, because I have read and very much enjoyed that book - the library near where I used to live happened to have a copy.

I'm definitely not a fan of this kind of tinkering unless the instructions by the director are very explicit (as in the case of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" for example) and at least some kind of approximation can be made. For me the definitive version of Pat Garrett is Peckinpah's rough cut (i.e. the TCM '88 version with the scene with Garrett's wife added back in).